


The Long Road to Weisshaupt

by Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard



Series: Mass Effect: Inquisition [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Anora Sucks, But You're Reading This Anyway, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, I Can't Bring Myself to Tag Specific Sex Acts, M/M, Multi, Porn With Plot, Should Be PWP But I Can't Help Myself, Smut of Various Sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 10:21:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15410820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard/pseuds/Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard
Summary: Twelve years after the Blight, Alistair's starting to figure out where he went wrong.A/k/a the fix-it fic I've wanted to write since DA:O.Set in the Inquisitor Shepard-verse, but without any mention of Shepard.  Chronologically happens after Chapter 18 of Mass Effect: Inquisition, but is easy to follow for anyone with passing familiarity with DA:I.





	The Long Road to Weisshaupt

The giddy, effervescent feeling of adventure- like the first hour of a party where champagne was served and the musicians were talented- did not last him much past the first morning, and certainly not out of the Frostbacks. 

Alistair’s plan to put Ferelden to his back and point his horse’s nose towards Weisshaupt was, he was forced to admit early and often, half-baked at best.  Oh, it wasn’t as though he was having second thoughts about leaving the entire king business behind.  That had been a good long time coming.  But he could have planned this little venture out a bit better than simply begging a horse and some basic supplies off of Leliana and setting out in a direction he was only fairly certain was west. 

He had been overconfident. That was not usually his governing sin. Making poor decisions without the due amount of planning- sure, he lived there.  But this particular fiasco was born of his vague recollection that he hadn’t had much in the way of supplies during the Blight, and he’d somehow always been well-fed, sheltered, and healed whenever he needed it.  So he’d barely thought about what the journey from the Inquisition’s camp in the Frostbacks to Weisshaupt was likely to entail.  He thought it would take care of itself, the way it always had.  

Now that he had time to really think hard about it- as he shivered, hungry and cold, in the damp little cave serving as his camp for the evening- hadn’t Lyna done most of the hunting? And the scouting?  And the provisioning?  And the thinking?  He’d gone straight from the Chantry’s custody into Duncan’s and then into Lyna’s.  Now here he was, twelve years older, and not a lick smarter, and apparently he had not absorbed any skill in woodcraft from their six-month campaign.   Even his horse seemed to be looking at him with vague disdain. 

“Oh, as though you could have done much better?” he asked it.  It snorted a hot, wet breath at his face, lipping his hair a bit.  “I don’t take any guff from horses.  That’s my dog’s job.”  

So when they finally staggered out of the mountains a week later, Alistair decided to hole up in a charming little Orlesian village in the foothills for a bit while he planned how he was going to travel the thousand miles to Weisshaupt.  

For having run an entire country until the previous week (well, been the figurehead puppet of an entire country with Anora’s hand up his metaphorical arse, if he were to be perfectly honest about it), his monetary resources were small.  His needs had never been great, and Anora had seen no reason to give him a great deal of pocket money when he would only spend it on mabari toys and imported cheese anyway, so his funds were, he thought, unlikely to sustain him the length of the journey. 

So he took a modest room in the local inn (which only possessed modest rooms in the first place, stroke of luck there) and sent off a few letters.  He sent one to Anora, of course, since he wasn’t a complete cad, and told her the country was hers, she should consider herself faultlessly divorced and welcome to proclaim whichever grounds she chose (he hoped she chose impotence, that was would be easier to disprove to Lyna than insanity) and wished her and Lady Erlina the happiest of futures. 

He sent a copy of that letter to Teagan and asked if he would please send Alistair fifty sovereigns or so and his dog.  

Then he sent a letter to Lyna informing her that he would be along shortly to report for whatever duty the Wardens saw fit to impose and advising her of certain developments in Ferelden (“the Veil is falling, Andraste’s been reborn, I’m getting divorced, and I’m headed towards Weisshaupt as soon as Teagan sends my dog.  Yours, xoxo.”).  His hand was cramping after all that correspondence, but he felt better for having planned things out a bit better this time.  

He then spent a pleasant couple of weeks enjoying the small comforts the village had to offer- the local wines and cheeses weren’t bad- and waited for return correspondence. 

He was really not expecting assassins.  Oh sure, that was the first step to getting assassinated- don’t expect assassins. But he’d thought that assassins were one of those things he’d managed to leave behind in Denerim, like table manners and celibacy. 

He made a very undignified noise when the first assassin jumped off a rooftop and landed in front of him.  It was something like a ‘meep,’ followed by a gurgle when he nearly choked on the wine he was drinking straight from the bottle whilst he took his post-dinner stroll around the village.  The man paused and Alistair was certain he was actually holding back a chuckle, even if his face was properly obscured by a black veil.  Wouldn’t that be the very worst way to die?  After your killer had a giggle at your expense? 

But luckily, his assassin’s outbreak of mirth at Alistair’s lack of dignity allowed Alistair to retake the advantage and break his wine bottle on his assailant’s head. 

Alistair might not be a twenty-year-old Templar recruit any longer, but he had _loads_ of tension to dispose of, and self-abuse could only fill so many hours of the day before even Alistair didn’t want to have sex with himself.  He’d kept in shape.  He hadn’t fought for his life in a few years, but he’d spent several hours a week with a sword in his hand.  Not that sword.  Starfang.  

After the first assassin went down, Alistair got his sword drawn and his back to the wall before the second and third (assassins were like termites, there were always two in the floor for every one you saw scamper across your kitchen) rushed him. 

They were being awfully less than stabby for good assassins, and from the silence of their movements and the quality of their weapons, they were good assassins.  One had a garrote and the other a large wooden club. Instead of rushing him together, they were circling him, watching him carefully.

“Given my luck, this is probably not a mistake on your part, but you should know I’m not in the politics business any more,” Alistair told them.  “We could decide not to kill each other, part as friends, and still truthfully report to your client that I will not be doing whatever you were employed to stop me from doing.”

“We just need you unconscious, not hurt,” one said, her voice muffled by the veil over her face.  He thought she had a Marcher accent. “There are more painful and less painful ways of making that happen.  Drop the sword right now and maybe I’ll forget what you did to Cristo, there.” 

“What? Surrender?  And trust you to do whatever you please to my helpless and tender person?”  Alistair said, still watching their centers of gravity.  “I didn’t get this old and wily by taking offers like that.”

The two assassins couldn’t exchange signals very well, as wrapped up as they were, so Alistair was ready for them when they nodded at each other and rushed him.  He caught the cudgel on his sword and managed to get a good kick on the inside of the knee of the second assassin.  She fell, but the weight of the cudgel-wielder carried him up against the wall.  The man was big- probably bigger even than Alistair- and he’d likely consumed a lot less wine and cheese that evening.  Alistair was pinned up against the wall, sword caught outside his guard, and the female was cursing a storm and hopping up to her feet. 

“Close your eyes!” a voice shouted.  Alistair’s conscious mind didn’t recognize that voice, but some less-aware part of him did.  He complied. The flash of light was so bright that it shone even through his shuttered lids, though it was gone in an instant.  When he promptly opened his eyes again, he saw that his assailants had pressed their hands over their faces.  That didn’t do them much good _after_ the flash-bang had gone off, of course, and it definitely did not leave them in a good position to stop someone else from slitting their throats from behind.  

Double assassinations! This was not how he had planned his evening. 

“My timing remains exquisite,” his rescuer purred in a lilting Antivan accent.  “Though the quality of your kidnappers does not, I am sad to say.” 

“Zevran?”  Alistair said, nearly dropping his sword in surprise. “Maker’s mercy, it’s good to see you!” He impulsively bear-hugged the elf, squeezing his shoulders tight.  Zevran chuckled and patted him gently on the back.  Once at arms-length, the former(?) assassin took his measure, which he returned. Zevran was little changed, although his hair was a bit longer, and caught back in a tail, instead of braids. There were perhaps one or two new lines around his eyes.  But he otherwise looked like the same rogue who had helped Alistair stop the Fifth Blight, then left for Weisshaupt with the love of his life.  And Zevran’s. 

“Yes, yes, who would not be glad to see me?  Especially in the middle of a mediocre-quality kidnapping.”  

“No, really, I am truly happy to see you.  It’s been ages.  I can’t wait to catch up, I…wait, did you say kidnapping?  How did you know?  I thought I was being assassinated again.” 

Zevran laughed. “Again?  I thought even you could only get assassinated the one time. No, no, my friend, these are kidnappers.  Perhaps they also assassinate on the side.  But today they were hired to kidnap you.”

Alistair squinted at the bodies littering the alley floor.  The first one- the one he’d hit with a half-decent bottle of Lydes cabernet- was beginning to moan and stir.  Zevran noticed and kicked the man in the face.  He stopped stirring. 

“How can you tell?” Alistair asked.  “Because they weren’t stabbing me yet?  The weapons they were using?”

Zevran laughed.  “Oh, no.  Because your uncle tried to hire me first.”

 * * *  

Zevran had brought Alistair's pack along with him.  He didn’t let Alistair go back to the inn for his horse.    

“I looked at that poor beast.  We agreed that your relationship was not working.  It said it was not you, it was him.” 

“It was me, wasn’t it,” Alistair said glumly as they walked together out of the town under the cover of night. 

“Ah, what is the point in dissecting the past?” Zevran said.  “I am sure you will take much better care of your next horse.” 

Alistair admitted that he had not left the Inquisition with a great deal of supplies or plans, though he was sure that Zevran had already figured that part out.

“So what did you happen to be doing in this part of the world?” Alistair asked him. 

“I did not happen here at all,” Zevran explained to him.  “Lyna got your first letter about the fight at Redcliffe and sent me towards the Inquisition.  I had just made it to Val Royeaux when your second letter was intercepted by Warden-Commander Clarel.   She directed that you be taken into custody.  I had an inkling that our own dear Warden-Commander would not like that, so I made for Kinloch Hold, thinking that I would find you before the Wardens could.  While I was there, I found out through the usual channels that Anora wants you dead and your uncle wants you brought to him in a sack.  I accepted both contracts, and here we are.” 

“What- why?” Alistair cried. It felt terribly unfair.  Twelve years of doing everything he was told (not that this marked a great departure from his previous twenty), and this was how they repaid him? 

“The usual reasons, I assume,” Zevran said breezily.  “Your uncle prefers you in power, and your wife is feeling the insult of being jilted again by the second Therin son.  Oh, listen. Do you hear that?  Hounds.  Let us pick up the pace, shall we?”

An uncomfortable few days of trampling off-roads through the Orlesian backcountry ensued.  Alistair was so exhausted through most of it that they barely spoke. There was not much opportunity to, anyway. They had to remain silent to hide from the various groups hunting him down.  Alistair had thought he was keeping himself up as a king, but a few days of rough living quickly showed that to be a lie.  He was surprised at how much things seemed to rearrange themselves. The little slab of flesh on his stomach he had thought of as a proud sign of surviving to something approaching middle age disappeared, only to reappear on his thighs and calves.  He picked back up the tan he had sported during his younger years.  His goatee disappeared in the midst of the rest of his facial hair.  Alistair was fairly certain Anora wouldn't recognize him if she ran into him in the woods. He wasn’t certain whether the trip was taking years off his life, or adding them back to it. 

At last, the woods gave way to farmland, which gave way to a large Orlesian city.

“Ah, Lydes!” said Zevran. “I once killed a lay sister here. It was a funny story…”

“Er, yes,” Alistair cut him off.  “I would love to hear all about it.  But do you think we’re safe?” 

Zevran looked him up and down, apparently finding him wanting.  “Your pursuers are looking for a king, or perhaps a Grey Warden.  If you would cover up that over-compensatory sword of yours, nobody would think you were anything more than a mildly successful mercenary.”

“Right,” said Alistair. “Very clever.  Do you think we might find a large-ish horse trough somewhere nearby though?  I became accustomed to regular bathing in recent years and even the bugs haven't come near me over the past few days.”

Zevran’s delicately arched eyebrows lifted.  “To each his own, but I was thinking that we might procure a bath at a reasonable inn.”

Alistair’s mouth watered at the thought of real food, a hot bath, and clean sheets- not necessarily in that order- but he wasn’t certain his funds extended to that kind of indulgence.

“I’m afraid the whole ‘king’ gig was not as lucrative as it would sound,” he admitted.  “I was hoping that my uncle might send me some gold as a sort of farewell gift, but it sounds as though he spent it on cut-rate kidnappers instead.” 

“Ah, not to worry, my friend,” said Zevran.  “I am positively burdened with the proceeds of your extortionate taxes on the fine Teyrnir of Amaranthine.  Lyna never spends it, you see, as she says she already has one set of Dalish leather armor and two fine bows, and what more could one woman really need?  I had to relieve her of a bit of it to prevent the poor thing from trading it away for strings of bright beads and shiny pebbles.” 

He wasn't thrilled at the idea of spending Lyna's money, but Alistair allowed himself to be guided to a middle-tier kind of inn, where merchants mixed with gentleman farmers in the city for business, and a number of sober-clothed guards awaited new assignments.  

At Zevran’s suggestion, he kept his mouth entirely shut until after they’d been provided a room and the housekeeping staff had pumped up two baths full of steaming hot water into the large copper tubs hauled in for the purpose.

It was so similar to the nights they’d spent in Denerim during the Blight that Alistair stripped and plunged into the bath without hardly a thought.  After a few moments spent hiding weapons around the room, Zevran followed suit.  When Alistair closed his eyes, he could almost imagine he could hear Leliana sniping at Morrigan, or Wynne clucking over Oghren’s filthy habits.  He had lit a candle in the Denerim chantry after hearing of Wynne’s recent passing.  He wasn’t sure he believed in the Chantry any longer, but he was certain he believed in Wynne. 

“So, where to next?” Zevran said lazily, after they had both splashed themselves more or less clean. 

“I suppose it would be more direct to take ship across the Waking Sea, but I’m afraid the manifests would give too good a signal to the fellows following us,” Alistair replied after thinking for a moment.  “We’ll have to go around.”  

“Very well,” Zevran agreed easily.  “But what is your ultimate destination?”

“Oh,” said Alistair, thinking hard, both about the fact that Zevran was asking the question as though he didn’t know the answer, and the use of the singular possessive. “Weisshaupt.  Isn’t that where…you are going?”

“Usually,” said Zevran, opaquely.  “But why? Do you have a great burning desire to meet the First Warden and receive your orders in person?  I warn you, he is an unpleasant fellow, very grim.”

“Too bad for him,” Alistair murmured uncomfortably, shifting in the tub.  

“So, then, what is in Weisshaupt?” Zevran pressed.  

“Er . . . Lyna?” Alistair stuttered.  “I assume?”

“Ah, that is the heart of it then, as I thought,” Zevran said.  “Let us go down to the common room, order some supper and strong drink, and speak like adults.”  He stood up out of the tub, without any self-awareness of his nudity, and began to vigorously towel himself off with one leg propped up on the lip of the copper basin. 

Zevran did not have tan lines; either he sunbathed in the altogether, or he just came in that tawny color.  Somehow the half a year they had spent together on the road had not revealed that fact.  Or the charming assortment of decorative tattoos. 

They redressed into cleaner clothes from their packs, and went downstairs, finding seats at the less-busy end of the long bar girding the room.  

“So,” Zevran said, once the server had brought them two large bowls of chicken stewed in red wine and half a loaf of soft white bread.  “What is your business with the Warden-Commander, then?”

Alistair chewed contemplatively before answering.  Zevran’s face was relaxed and neutral.  Alistair did not take that for disinterested in the answer.  Zevran had killed Taliesin with the same gentle lack of concern. 

“I thought I’d see if she still had a use for a reasonably competent swordsman and moderately effective Grey Warden,” Alistair said after a moment's thought.  

“You are too modest, my dear,” purred Zevran, eyes hooded.  “There are only two Wardens at large with a Blight on their trophy mantel.”

“Mine’s put away somewhere,” Alistair said.  “Tainted the children, and such.” 

“Mmm, I would imagine,” Zevran said.  “You didn’t end up having any of those?  I thought that was an important goal of yours?” 

Alistair winced, remembering what a prat he’d been to Lyna that terrible day at Eamon’s estate after the Landsmeet. She’d never suggested that she had any role in the life he was snatching up for himself, and he’d nonetheless felt the need to spell out for her exactly what becoming king would mean for their relationship. Lyna had been trying, in that clear-eyed, selfless way of hers, to turn him into a man worthy of saving the world.  And he, like a child, had been desperate to rub her face in the sacrifices he’d decided to make for both of them.  She’d never taken any choices away from them.  He’d taken them all from himself. 

“I have come to understand that a mommy and a daddy don’t need to love each other very much to make little princes and princesses, but they probably do need to be willing to be mostly naked with each other at least once,” he said, trying to play it off lightly.

“Oh come now, Anora was not to your taste?” Zevran said, equally light, though his eyes were still shadowed as he watched Alistair. 

“More that I wasn’t hers,” Alistair said sourly.  “Not that I would have minded, if she could have found someone else not remarkably dissimilar from myself in looks to do the job.  I still would have loved to have had a family.  But Lady Erlina unfortunately lacks certain necessary equipment, and Anora was rather constant in her inconstancy that way.”  

Zevran leaned back in his chair and took a draught of his wine.  Alistair watched the muscles in his throat move as he swallowed.  

“I am certain I do not need to point this out to you,” Zevran told him.  “But Lyna is also not going to be able to assist you in that endeavor.  It is not as though either of us has ever taken any precautions to the contrary, you see, and twelve years later, there is not a single pittering of little elven feet down the halls of the old fortress in the Anderfels.” 

Alistair wasn’t certain from whence the darker note in Zevran’s voice came- either they were closer to getting to the meat of the discussion, or Zevran had also entertained dreams of children, once upon a time.  Neither option was a happy one, and his own heart ached in sympathy for his two friends, if they had also been forced to adjust to the knowledge that certain doors, open to most of the world, had been closed to them before they had reached their third decade of life.  

“I know,” Alistair said, trying to convey his sympathy.  “Maker, that’s not why I want to see her.”

“Do I mistake your intent, then?”  Zevran asked him.  “I thought you were hoping to make some grand gesture, tell her you were a fool to leave her, and confess you have loved her every day since you have been parted.” 

“Er, no,” Alistair said. “I am utterly transparent, it seems. Tell me, how many fingers am I holding up behind my back?”

Zevran laughed, and the sound contained a bit of mirth, to Alistair’s relief.

“That is a lovely story, my friend, but I have to ask why now, and why Lyna?  Surely there have been other women in these long years.”

Alistair hid his face behind his napkin, wiping gravy off his chin. 

“No, actually,” he said at last.  “There haven’t been.  I always took my promises seriously.  If I wouldn’t break them for Lyna, what was the use in in breaking them for someone else?”

Zevran was finally startled by something he’d said, acting as shocked as if Alistair had confessed that he’d joined the Disciples of Andraste and made love exclusively to receptive wyverns.  

“For twelve _years_?” he said, tone close to a screech. “Alistair, you’re not a …a…” his tone dropped to a panicked whisper. “A virgin?”

“The revered mother said to tell your children it’s not a dirty word,” Alistair sing-songed. “But no, not...technically.”  

Zevran still looked utterly confused, like Alistair had said up was down and dry was wet. “Alistair, I know it was not our fair Warden, because I…well, I know.  So tell me, what kind of a technicality stole your virginity?”

Alistair stared down into the dregs of his wineglass. Apparently Lyna had not told Zevran everything, though he could not blame her for not sharing that particular story. Sometimes he thought he had made it up himself in some kind of a dark fever dream. But this entire plan of his depended on his own transparency, he’d known that from the start.  So he told him.

“Morrigan,” he said simply, draining the glass. 

Zevran chuckled richly at that for a moment, then stopped, staring at him wide-eyed, with a slight tilt of his blonde head.

“That must have been…that must have been _some_ kind of a drink.  And I am not even certain which of you had to drink it.”  

“You have no idea,” Alistair said dryly, pouring himself another glass of the red wine, and thinking of his Joining. 

“Mmmm, some but…no.” Zevran said, thoughtful. “So.  Here it is.  You know that Lyna and I left Denerim together, and have remained at each other’s side as long as our separate business has allowed.  While I cannot pretend that monogamy has been my completely strict election, I may generally look forward to spending my remaining years following Lyna about Thedas as her loyal servant in all matters martial and physical.  How do you propose to get rid of me?”

Alistair was pleased to see that Zevran did not so much as caress any of the daggers that Alistair had watched him secrete about his person when they left their room to come down for dinner.  That was a good sign.

Alistair folded his napkin back over his plate, took another sip of his wine to clear the taste of his dinner from his mouth, then laid his hands flat on his thighs.  Were they sweating a bit?  Figured. 

“Easy answer,” Alistair said, proud that his voice didn’t shake, not even a little.  “I don’t.” 

Zevran opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again.  His expression veered between confusion and suspicion.  That was vastly relieving to Alistair.  He wasn’t sure his courage would support him if Zevran had been too smooth at this, or worse, amused. 

“I do not understand,” Zevran said at last.  “We would seem to be at an impasse.” 

Alistair leaned a bit closer, feeling Zevran’s eyes on him.  However the man had assumed this conversation would go, it was not this way. 

“Really?” Alistair said, his voice dropping a bit.  “Lyna figured it out.”  He slid his palm forward until his fingers just brushed the other man’s knee. Zevran frowned down at Alistair’s hand in consternation.  So Alistair gently caught the elf’s chin with his other hand, tilted it up, and slowly leaned forward to seal his lips over Zevran’s.

Alistair did not have a great deal of experience with kissing.  There had been a girl or two in the Chantry eager to give it a try before taking vows, and then of course there had been only a few sweet weeks with Lyna where they caught each other in dark corners or starlit nights, both of them all angles and elbows.  Morrigan, of course, had only been concerned with activity taking place on the lower halves of their bodies.  And Anora had turned stiffly and offered her cheek at their wedding ceremony, and he’d never tried again.  In any event, Alistair had never kissed another man, and he was pleasantly surprised by how soft Zevran’s lips were.  After an initial jolt of surprise, the elf acquitted himself very well, in Alistair’s opinion, turning his head expertly, pulling back a hair to let his warm, wine-scented breath play over Alistair’s mouth, then pushing back in.  After another moment, Alistair opened his mouth a bit and tentatively brushed his tongue against Zevran’s full lower lip. Zevran caught up that invitation and swept his own tongue into Alistair’s mouth, deepening the kiss.  Then he broke it off.

Alistair was vaguely chuffed to see that the other man seemed at least as affected by it as he was. The remainder of the room had seemed to fade away in the moment, but as the noise penetrated his mind again, Alistair realized that snogging his traveling companion in the middle of a room full of professional caravan guards was not a great way to travel incognito. 

“We should, um…” he gestured vaguely at the stairs. 

“Yes,” said Zevran, still a little disoriented, pupils wide.  “Upstairs.” 

Alistair went up first, conscious of the other man’s gaze upon him the entire time.  He thought about trying to build some kind of alluring flex of his muscles into his movement, then abandoned that thought as likely to lead to toppling them both back down the stairs.

Zevran sauntered into their room behind him, wine bottle still firmly in hand.  Alistair locked the door and leaned back against it. The room was equipped with twin matresses on elevated wood and rope frames, and Alistair tried to look only at Zevran and not at either of the beds.  Something of his growing uncertainty must have shown in his face, though, because Zevran took another drink from the bottle and laughed.

“You do not need to look as though you have just locked yourself in a cage with a tiger,” he said, his voice rich with amusement.  “This is not a test you need to pass, my dear.  I had planned on telling you that Lyna makes her own decisions, always, and I would be happy to transport you to her, so long as you had no illusions about her and me.”  

Alistair shook his head. “It’s not that.  It’s just-Zev, I never thought that you and I were star-crossed lovers, or something like that, but I missed you too, you know?  I’ve been thinking about this since Lyna suggested it twelve years ago, and kicking myself that I didn’t take her up on it, and, Maker, I really hope she ran this by you before she threw it out there, and, oh Maker, did she?  She did, didn’t she?”  

Zevran cut off his mounting panic by closing the distance between them and pressing the bottle into his hands. 

“Not to fear, my dear Warden, I had only forgotten.  We were very young then, were we not?  This is not to say that the idea is unpleasant to me.  You remain, after all, a very handsome fellow, and we did part as friends.  I simply cannot speak for the lady.  We did not discuss it before I left this time, though I must add that she did not say much besides ‘oh Creators, you’d better go fetch him.  Write if it’s any trouble.’”

“Always a woman of few words,” Alistair murmured thankfully, taking a drink and setting the bottle aside. 

“And I love to hear myself talk, so it works well,” Zevran added, running one hand experimentally up Alistair’s chest and letting it rest on his shoulder. 

“Oh good,” said Alistair, gratefully.  “Because you’re going to have to talk me through this.”  He reached out and cupped Zevran’s waist with his hands.

“This?” Zevran said silkily, leaning forward and letting his lips graze Alistair’s pulse.  “What is this?”

“That, maybe?” Alistair said, swallowing nervously, trying not to fight back the flush of pleasure that shot through him with Zevran’s touch.  He let his hands explore the planes of the other man’s back through his shirt.  “I have never done…that.   So if there is any of….that….you will have to instruct me.” 

Zevran grinned at him, a flash of white teeth in his darker face.  “Will the Maker not preserve me from amorous Wardens begging me to tutor them in the arts of love?  Very well, twist my arm, and take off your clothes.”  

Always quick to follow orders, Alistair quickly complied, stripping off his tunic and trousers in a couple of swift motions.  Zevran’s eyes widened in a gratifying fashion.  He scratched the side of his neck.  “That was easier than I thought.”  

“If you want me to flutter my hands in outrage, I’m perfectly happy to comply, but just to lay all of my cards out on the table, I’ve had about twelve years to think about this, and I am really, really on board with the idea,” Alistair admitted.  

Zevran shrugged, bemused. “I must confess I am rapidly coming around to it myself,” he said, then just as quickly as he’d ever hamstringed an opponent in battle, he ducked and tackled Alistair to the nearest pallet. 

He managed not to land with his weight on top of the larger man, but instead straddled him, hands resting lightly on Alistair’s abdomen.  His body was light and taut, and the candlelight in the room caught all the hollows and lines of his face and neck.  Alistair traced his hands over Zevran’s thighs then followed them up his body, thumbs caressing his stomach and lifting his linen shirt slightly out of his trousers.  Alistair ducked his hands underneath the other man’s linen shirt, and repeated the motion, this time against silky warm skin.  Zevran leaned over him to kiss him again, this time letting his tongue explore the inside of Alistair’s mouth, while Alistair fumbled Zevran’s tunic laces with shaking hands. 

Alistair shifted anxiously as his hardening cock twitched against Zevran’s leg.  He shouldn’t be embarrassed.  That’s the point, Alistair, he told himself, he’s definitely dealt with that before.  And the man definitely both noticed and knew what to do about it, reaching down to palm Alistair from length to tip through his smallclothes with a throaty chuckle.

Alistair’s cheeks were burning with a blush that seemed to be spreading from his face down his neck and setting his chest aflame.  He should know what to do, he thought, he was a grown man, and had been a husband and a Warden and a hero and a king, but he was terribly afraid he was going to do something wrong, and Zevran eventually pulled his shirt out of Alistair’s shaking hands and tossed it over his head and aside.

Sensing something of Alistair’s confusion, he smiled against Alistair’s mouth and whispered, “Do not fear, my dear, you are doing perfectly, and there is no risk that I will kill and eat you, like a darkspawn, and so what have you to fear?”

“Oh, plenty of things,” Alistair said, gasping when the other man ground down against his cock. “I’m afraid of lots of things short of dismemberment.” 

“Mmm,” Zevran hummed, letting his hands chase down through the downy blond hair covering Alistair’s chest, and giving one of Alistair’s nipples a hard pinch on the way.  “I find it useful to find and eliminate the worst case scenario first.  So I should tell you that there is nothing you could do tonight to offend me and make me leave.  That is what worries you, no?”

That was, in fact, what worried Alistair, and he relaxed quite a bit when Zevran said that.  He gave into the warmth of the body above him, the pleasant fuzz the wine laid on his thoughts, and the silken feel of Zevran’s hair and skin under his hands.  Maker, it had been so long since anyone _touched_ him.  Not even this, even a friendly arm slung around his shoulders, like Duncan had done, or a delicate hand laid on his forearm, like Leliana would place when pointing out a landmark on the horizon.  His spirit had been dying by inches of neglect. 

But now, free to touch and feel and taste, he felt drowned in sensation, like a dry river bed under a spring rain.  Although he felt that the two of them were on their way to some unseen destination together, the firm press of Zevran’s legs around him and his hands on Alistair’s body quickly had Alistair shaking and then spending in the underclothes he’d never gotten around to removing. 

Before Alistair could even work up the wits to be mortified, though, Zevran grabbed his wrists and pushed them back to the bed, preventing Alistair from pulling away.

“Ah, it is my fault for being so ridiculously good-looking, isn’t it?”  Zevran said, leaning over him, face still warm with affection. 

“Yes, that.  Let’s go with that,” Alistair stuttered.  “Come here then, you, and let me get where I won’t be distracted by your pretty face.” 

He was, after all, bigger and stronger than the elf, so he grabbed Zevran’s arm for leverage and flipped their positions.  He slid back down to the floor on his knees (thanking the landlord for the rag rug beneath the bed cushioning him), and dragging Zevran’s trousers and smallclothes along with him when he went. 

He managed to get himself squared away between Zevran’s knees, with his hand wrapped around the other man’s cock, just below the dusky tip, before he was faced with another decision point.  He had no concept of what was considered typical for the act he was about to perform, and his personal musing that there would be very little that someone could do to his own cock with his or her mouth that Alistair would not enjoy was a slim consolation.   Keep teeth at bay, he firmly instructed himself.  Don’t nuzzle until you’ve had a shave. 

Zevran’s spread knees and broad smile were invitation enough, though, so Alistair slowly leaned forward and wrapped his mouth around the tip of Zevran’s cock, stroking his thumb up the firm length of him at the same time.  Alistair was certain he was not employing any kind of finesse, but he shuffled closer on his knees, brought his second hand in to cup Zevran’s balls, and did his best to close his mouth over the entirety of the other man’s cock.

After a few seconds, Zevran wound his fingers into Alistair’s curls, gently directing his head and combing through his hair.  Alistair found a rhythm he could sustain, and lost himself in the warmth and movement and smell and taste of it.  Zevran broke into a stream of Antivan, which Alistair couldn’t follow, but the general tone of it was pleased and complimentary.  Eventually, Zevran tugged Alistair back up on the bed, and closed both of Alistair’s hands around his cock as he jerked out a hot lash of spend across Alistair’s stomach.  

They both fell back on the bed, legs dangling off to either side.  Zevran flicked a few pieces of hair that had come dislodged from his queue back behind his ears, then reached out to tweak Alistair’s earlobe.  

“Ah, my friend, I did not expect this evening to proceed so.  Well, except that I do expect to constantly guard my virtue from admirers, I suppose.”  He grabbed a towel from the basin on the nightstand and tossed it to Alistair to clean up. 

“Oh, is that’s what’s on me? Virtue?” Alistair said, with a raised eyebrow.  He gave up on getting clean with the hand towel and decided to dip back into the now room-temperature bath to wash.  Zevran snickered, but he made room on the bed for Alistair when he came back to lie down again. 

Once they’d found a comfortable position that accommodated both Alistair’s broad shoulders and Zevran’s spiky knees, Alistair opened his mouth to say something- he wasn’t sure what- but Zevran cut him off with a quick nip of his lower lip. 

“Sleep on it before you say anything,” Zevran told him. That was good advice, Alistair thought. Besides, he was warm, and full, and now that he thought about it, so, so tired…. 

When Alistair woke and it was finally morning, it was to find Zevran struggling to get out from under the arm and leg Alistair had tossed over him in the night.  The air was still redolent of sex and sweat.  He would have blushed to find himself wrapped about the naked man like a kitten on a tree branch, but the grin the other man shot him was enough to make him relax and enjoy the simple pleasure of having someone happy to see him in the morning. 

“Sorry about that,” Alistair said. “Glad to see you survived, and still breathe, and everything.” 

“Not at all,” Zevran said, leisurely stretching (which did fascinating things to the muscles in his stomach) and then un-self-consciously commencing a search for his underclothes. “I had half feared you would awaken all full of regrets and sprint back for the hills.” 

Alistair laughed. “Shows what you know about Fereldans. We’re like our dogs.  You let us into bed once, and it’s nothing but fur and slobber for every night thereafter.  You’re stuck with me now.” 

“Ah, promises, promises,” said Zevran.  “In any event, shall we go downstairs and find a caravan to the Anderfels in need of experienced caravan guards?”

“If they want experienced caravan guards, why would they hire us?” Alistair objected.  

“Oh, I stole a passel of references last night while you were worrying about whether I was looking at your bottom,” Zevran told him.  “Do not worry, I was.  But also stealing.  I am that good.”

 * * *  

 Their journey to Weisshaupt thus commenced on a high note, full of promise.  The gates to the city were being watched, but Alistair kept his helmet on and his beard full until their wagon train of wine and spices had passed beyond the view of the city.

“Freedom!” he told Zevran giddily. 

“Yes, yes, you are perfectly free to return to your death cult of darkspawn slayers in the least hospitable country in the world,” Zevran pointed out. 

“Sounds perfect,” Alistair said, refusing to be baited.  “I love the smell of darkspawn in the morning.”

He also loved the smell of Zevran’s hair in the morning.  They weren’t the only pair of guards bedding down together of an evening, and Alistair reveled in the easy affection the other man sent his way.  Zevran never objected to Alistair smiling at him or reaching out to touch him- even if it was just to tug on his ponytail or clasp his hand.  Zevran was the friend and lover Alistair hadn’t had since his short romance with Lyna.  

Zevran had always exuded sex and confidence, but the man had changed since the Fifth Blight.  His remarks had always had an edge or a barbed hook before- usually pointing right back at him.  Although the man was still making a living as an assassin, from what Alistair could gather, that undercurrent of darkness was gone. Alistair could have envied the man his happiness, but instead he strove to share it. 

True to his predictions, Zevran was happy to expound on the mysteries of human sexuality to Alistair, both in lecture and fieldwork format.  Alistair wasn’t certain how he was supposed to absorb detailed instructions on the proper delivery of oral pleasure to a woman while Zevran was working a second, olive-oil coated finger into Alistair’s arse, but Zevran was also happy to repeat himself as often as necessary.  

They didn’t really talk about Lyna.  They didn’t _not_ talk about Lyna- obviously, she figured into a number of Zevran’s stories of his life over the previous twelve years- but they shared an unspoken understanding that to speculate on how she would receive the pair of them presenting Alistair for incorporation into her life and bed would be to bind her without her agreement.  So they did not talk about what would happen when the caravan reached its destination, and simply enjoyed the journey.

The weather grew warmer as they tended towards spring and they traveled to the northwest.  Zevran was friendly with the other guards, and understanding if Alistair slipped away from the fire of an evening to go to bed early, presuming that Alistair did not wish to invent a fictional backstory to keep the conversation flowing.  When the days grew longer, though, and Alistair began unrolling his pack before the sun had fully set, Zevran frowned and asked if he was having trouble sleeping.

“Oh, you know. Nightmares.  Guilty conscience, I suppose,” Alistair said, waggling his eyebrows lasciviously.

“My dear, we have not yet hardly scratched the surface of those acts the less enlightened might consider regrettable,” said Zevran lightly.  Alistair laughed and held out his arms, and Zevran flowed into them to convince him to delay sleep a bit longer.

Alistair’s nightmares did not start to wake Zevran up until they skirted the Fields of Ghyslain.   

He woke up shouting and thrashing, with Zevran sitting on his chest to hold him down. 

When he finally shook off the reins of blood and death riding his mind, he found Zevran still sitting astride his lap, looking concerned, and several of the other guards turning over in their sleeping bags, huffing to themselves in annoyance.  He’d woken most of the camp, it seemed.

“I’m sorry for that,” Alistair said, sweat still coating his neck and chest.  “Maybe I should camp a bit away from the rest of you from now on.” 

“Maybe you should tell me what troubles you, instead,” Zevran said.  “Have you had these dreams ever since the war?  You know, many people in my profession find that talking helps to to overcome these negative feelings.  We have professionals for that purpose, in fact.”

“There are people with the job to make assassins feel better about their jobs?” Alistair said, incredulously.

Zevran was not to be sidetracked.  “Alistair, it is not right that you should suffer all these years.”  

Alistair sighed. “It’s not all these years, Zev. They just started again.  It’s a…Warden thing.” 

 Zevran’s eyes widened. “Tell me it is not another Blight so soon,” he exclaimed.

Alistair had forgotten that the man was a good listener, and had been in the company of two Wardens during a Blight for nearly six months. 

“No, no,” he said, still trying to evade.  “It’s not that.” 

Zevran was silent for a long time, then he slid down next to Alistair, pulling their sleeping mats together. He turned Alistair so that he could wrap his lean arms around Alistair’s chest, and slept that way for the rest of the night.

They didn’t speak of it the next morning, or in the days that followed.  Alistair did catch Zevran watching him with hooded, concerned eyes a few times, when he thought Alistair wasn’t looking.  Alistair usually was.  Zevran was really the best thing to look at as the green Orlesian plains grew brown and scrubby near the Anderfels border.   

When their road passed Andoral’s Reach, they decided to beg leave of the caravan to visit the tree where Wynne’s ashes were interred.  Waving their fellows ahead, they had a pleasant walk to the ruins of the old fortress, where plumes of white smoke indicated present inhabitants. 

The present inhabitants turned out to be Circle mages, who were very friendly once Alistair indicated that he was there in a purely Warden-type capacity to pay his respects to one of their own. 

“Ah, are you with the others?” an elderly woman in ornate robes asked him when he explained that he was a Warden.  “Your fellows are visiting today as well, just beyond the old stables.”

Alistair’s heart fluttered in his chest before he ruthlessly told it that the odds that one particular Warden was also visiting the same tree on the same day were very slim. Zevran reached out and squeezed his hand hard, and Alistair returned the clasp with all he had.  

Together, they navigated the rubble and temporary housing erected by the Circle refugees until they rounded a remaining wall and saw the group of half a dozen Wardens in blue and silver armor.  Alistair only had eyes for one, though: a slim figure kneeling in the dirt to carefully plant a small sapling at the edge of the shade of a larger tree.

She seemed to know he was there.  She finished her job and stood, turning to face him directly. 

She’d let her hair grow. She hadn’t come through Denerim in almost six years, and the slippery, ebony mass of hair she’d once cropped short now fell in a braid down her back.  Her dark blue vallaslin over darker brown skin were bisected by a new scar across most of her forehead, and there were darker shadows under her large sable eyes, but she was still the most beautiful woman in the world to him, the only woman there had ever been for him.

She stared at them for a moment, her eyes taking in Alistair’s mercenary’s hauberk, short beard, and hand clasped in Zevran’s.  Then she smiled.  

“Lyna,” he whispered, and even though she was all the way across the courtyard, he knew she heard him.

 * * * 

Whatever he had been planning to say, he didn’t get a chance to say it, because there were other Wardens present, and he had to go through the entire production of explaining who he was and what he was doing there.  Nobody seemed to question the idea that he’d dispensed with his pretentions to monarchy and headed across most of Thedas to rejoin the Wardens, though. It was all very much a smooth welcome back, here’s what the darkspawn have been up to, and thanks again for stopping that last Blight, drinks on me.  Not from Lyna.  She said little, not that Alistair expected much until they had some privacy.  She’d always been a very reserved person, given more to thinking than speaking.  She’d briefly touched his hands and Zevran’s in greeting, but public demonstrations of affection had never been her way.

It was late before they could withdraw from the larger group of Wardens.  Lyna led him and Zevran up a marginally-stable staircase to a round tower room which had been cleaned of debris, but left unoccupied due to person-sized holes in the wall. 

Alistair swallowed hard when he saw the single large sleeping pallet on the floor.  Of course, she probably hadn’t been expecting him and Zevran both.

“I’ve been expecting you for a week,” she said to Zevran, eliminating that theory.

“You know how it is. The horse threw a shoe.  Alistair was hunted by kidnappers.  We stopped in Val Fermin for the cheese festival.” 

She looked at Alistair to confirm this.  He shrugged helplessly.  “You made abdication sound so easy,” he said. 

She frowned faintly. “That was before you ruled the country for twelve years,” she pointed out.

“Better late than never?” he said, starting to squirm under her steady gaze.  

“I suppose,” she said, tilting her head, and exchanging some kind of unspoken communication with Zevran.

“I have been researching a cure for the darkspawn taint,” she abruptly told him. 

“Okay,” he said, when she paused for his input. 

“I spend a great deal of time in the Deep Roads.” 

“Okay,” he said again.  

“The First Warden and the Warden officers may be corrupt.”

“Okay.” 

“I didn’t think you would ever come back,” she added.

His expression fell a bit. “Okay,” he said softly.  

“I was very angry at you for a long time, and sometimes imagined you being eaten by hurlocks.” 

He swallowed hard. “Okay.”

She glanced over at Zevran. “Don’t give me that look.  He’s not a stray kitten you brought home.” 

“My darling,” Zevran began, commencing a sweeping gesture and lengthy explanation.  She cut him short with a curt motion of her small, graceful hand. 

She looked at Alistair again, tilting that pointed, stubborn chin up at him.  Maker, she never had gotten any bigger than a minute, had she. 

“Okay,” she said. 

He hesitated. “Okay…what?  Okay, you’re angry at me and may feed me to hurlocks in the Deep Roads?”

She gave a delicate snort. “Okay, we’ll keep you.”  She stepped closer to him, went up on her tiptoes, and pulled him down by the ears to kiss her.  She tasted the same, like the sorrel she liked to chew and the almond oil she put in her hair, but she kissed with a confidence they’d both lacked before.  Of course, she’d spent the past twelve years kissing, and he was still making up for it. 

“I’m glad you came around so quickly, my dear,” Zevran said, stepping behind Alistair and reaching around him to grasp Lyna’s hips.  “Are you very tired?  I have not had reason to study the Tevinter texts of love in quite some time, but I have always rather been intrigued by the depiction of “the rooster crows at midnight.” But I am not certain I have the proper supplies with me.  Do you have a good length of rope and the appropriate weighted blankets?" 

Lyna could feel Alistair stiffen in sudden apprehension, and laughed against the line of his throat.  

“He’s teasing.  I think.  Perhaps we could simply get to know each other again a bit first?”

“Oh, yes.  Of course,” Alistair said, equal portions relieved and disappointed.

“Naked?” Zevran clarified.

“Naked,” Lyna agreed, whereupon they teamed up to relieve him of his clothes and dignity alike. 

After some amount of disrobing and groping, they all settled on the large square island of blankets they had spread on the floor.  Zevran had Lyna in his lap, pulled back against his chest, while Alistair knelt in front of her.  

Her body told a story in scars, only half of which he knew by heart.  The little knot on her collarbone where she’d caught a genlock arrow right before going down at the Tower of Ishal.  The row of punctures on the bottom of her left calf where a dragonling had nipped her at Kinloch Hold.  The striping pattern of burns on her right hand where Urthemiel’s blood had splashed her as she delivered the final blow.  He leaned over her and traced each one with lips and tongue.  I remembered you, he said with his body. Every single touch.  Every single tear.  I remembered.  Eventually, he let his lips trace down her stomach to where he had never learned her. 

She sighed and arched back against Zevran when his lips first traced her slit. He explored her with his tongue, discovering every way in which a woman was different from a man with his lips, and following reverently with his fingers.  He had the dim awareness, out of his peripheral vision, of Zevran cupping her small, pointed breasts with his fingers, and pressing his lips against the pulse point at the crook of her neck.  

After identifying the places that made her arch towards his mouth and moan, he closed his lips over her and slid one finger inside, crooking his finger the way Zevran had instructed him.  

Zevran had to hold her up, then, because she bucked her hips and hissed out an elven curse, grabbing onto Zevran’s knees as she came.  Alistair met Zevran’s pleased eyes and wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand, smirking at him.

“Don’t look so proud, you,” Alistair told the other man.  “Maybe it’s just natural talent.”

Zevran leaned over Lyna’s shoulder and kissed him lingeringly.  “Unlocked by expert tutelage,” he clarified. 

Lyna laughed, the same high and clear sound he remembered, and his heart felt full to bursting in his chest. 

“Let’s find out what else you can do, and give poor Zev’s back a rest,” she said, pulling him towards her.  

“Oh, right,” he said, hesitantly, as she lay down on her back, looking up at him expectantly. “If, I mean, you’re sure.”

She reached up and cupped his face with her hands. 

“Emma lath,” she called him, and his heart sang to hear that endearment for the first time in so many years. 

He touched her gently, hesitantly, between her legs, tracing his fingertips along the satin textures of her skin.  Zevran knelt down next to them, rubbing his hand along his own shaft.  He leaned over to nip Alistair’s shoulder. 

“If you did not break me, you will not break her,” he whispered in Alistair’s ear.  “But if you’re worried, she always has that almond oil in her pack.” 

At Alistair’s grateful glance, Zevran shuffled over to retrieve it, but before he could return, Lyna grasped Alistair firmly by the arm, wrapped her long, slim legs around his waist, and pulled him down and into her in one smooth motion. 

“Oh,” Alistair said, insensate, torso pushed directly against her breasts.  He was abruptly terrified he would crush her.  

“Shhh,” Lyna said, tilting her forehead up and against his own.  She sinuously rolled her hips against his while he scrabbled with his forearms to lift his weight off of her. 

“Just forget it has been twelve years,” she whispered.  “This is how it should have been.  Everything in between never happened.” 

Zevran’s hand brushed his hair and stroked down the back of his body, anchoring him. 

Alistair cautiously rolled his hips against Lyna, and was rewarded by a throaty sound of appreciation. 

He heard Zevran open the bottle of oil.  The man slipped a hand between both their legs, and stroked up and along the length of Alistair and Lyna’s conjoined bodies with his slick fingers the next time Alistair rolled up against her.  

“Oh Maker,” he said. “The Chantry sisters didn’t warn me about this, probably because they never dreamed this up, but that feels really good.”  

Zevran laughed, and Lyna squeezed her legs around Alistair in impatience. 

“Right!” Alistair stuttered. “Focus.”  He wasn’t sure that the angle he had her at was doing a thing for her, but when he grabbed one of her legs and pulled it up over his arm, she gave a long, full-body shiver against him.  He rocked into her tight, hot embrace, trying to catch every exhale from her mouth with his own.  When Zevran slipped his hand between his legs again and pushed one firm finger into his body, Alistair shuddered and spent inside her.  He pulled away and nestled his face between her breasts, sighing in complete satisfaction. 

“Mmm, Zev?” Alistair asked, completely content.  “Anything I can do for you?” 

“Do not fear, my dear Warden,” the other man replied.  “Simply do not move.  Or do. As you please.” 

Zevran returned his hand to the pucker of Alistair’s arse, slipping his finger in again.  As relaxed as Alistair was at that moment, the man had no problem quickly following with two, and then three.  

Lyna caught on with Zevran’s plan, and pushed Alistair up onto all fours, though he whimpered in mock dismay when he had to remove his face from her chest.  She leaned back on her elbows, pulled a flask out of her pack, and crossed her legs to watch with fascinated interest while Zevran fucked him thoroughly.  

After Zevran came, with a happy and extremely sacrilegious prayer to Andraste on his lips, they collapsed in a happy pile, passing Lyna’s silver flask among the three of them.

“And I can stay?” Alistair finally asked, in a voice that was much smaller and younger than he might have liked, given the activities they had just undertaken.  Zevran shot him a sharp look from where he had his head pillowed in Lyna’s lap. 

Lyna gave him a small, slightly sad smile.  “I never could leave you behind,” she said. 

 * * * 

“So!” said Alistair the next morning, as they packed and found their discarded clothing. “Weisshaupt?  Are we going to Weisshaupt?  Because honestly I was only headed there because you were there.  And now you’re here.  So we could go anywhere.” 

 Lyna looked thoughtful. “Don’t you want to report to the First Warden?”

“Oh, why would I want to do that when I can report to you?  I’ll bet you’re prettier than he is.  You’re prettier than anyone.”  

Lyna decided that they would start down the road to Weisshaupt at a reasonable pace, and she would decide on her own whether the First Warden needed to hear everything Alistair had to say about the Inquisition.  

She told him that she’d gotten a fair number of reports from Leliana, but nothing at all out of the Wardens of Ferelden or Orlais.  

Alistair told her about the siege of Redcliffe, the Red Templar army, and Corypheus’ attack on Haven. Then skated across his own decision to abdicate and travel to Weisshaupt.  

Lyna had her serious Warden face on, and he could tell she was taking mental notes and weighing courses of action.  He did his best to keep his mouth shut and answer her questions simply.  That had always been how their best decisions got made. Her best decisions.  

So he wasn’t prepared for Zevran to interject the day before they reached the Warden headquarters. 

“My dear, don’t you think it is time you started telling the real story to us both?” he said in a disappointed tone.  

“Pardon?” he yelped.  

“I thought you were simply waiting to tell me and her at the same time, but I believe things have gone too far at this point,” Zevran continued, his expression darkening.

Alistair stared at him mulishly. 

Lyna stopped in the middle of the road, turning to face them both.

She’d gone from her ‘serious Warden’ face to her ‘murder all’ face. 

Alistair crossed his arms and glared at Zevran.  

‘Traitor,’ he mouthed at the man. 

“I am sorry, my dear, but I loved her first,” Zevran said to him.  “And then you.  Tell her or I will.” 

Lyna was fingering her belt knife, so he blurted it out before she started trying to carve it out of him.

“I’m hearing the Calling,” he said.

“What?” her eyes flew open. 

Zevran shook his head in disgust.  “I knew you would not simply abandon your country because you were tired of ruling. You Fereldans are lousy with your bizarre honor.  You think you are dying.  You came because you wanted to see her again before you died.” 

Alistair looked at Lyna, helpless to deny it.  Her jaw tightened.  

“When did it start?” she asked him softly.

“About two months ago,” Alistair told her.  “When I saw Corypheus’ army marching to Haven.”

“That was when it started for me, too,” she said, after a long pause, and a covert glance at Zevran. 

“What?” Zevran cried. “Merciful Andraste, no.  Not both of you.  That bitch in the heavens would not be so cruel.” 

Lyna shook her head. “It’s not right.  Alistair was a Warden nearly a year before I was.  There is no reason for both of us to hear the Calling at the same time.  Something has changed.  Something is wrong.” 

“What should we do?” Alistair asked her, because here they were together again, and it was twelve years later, and nothing had changed.

She looked down the road they had come from.  

“We need to go back. Corypheus has changed something for the Wardens.  We need to find out what.  We need to find out how he can manipulate the taint.”

“Back?” “Already?” Zevran and Alistair whined. 

“You want to see Andoral’s horns that badly?” she asked.  Weisshaupt was in view over the horizon.

Alistair held up his fingers an inch apart. 

“Just a little,” he admitted.  “And Garahel’s armor.  And maybe some griffon artwork.” 

“Fine,” Lyna sighed, because nobody had ever given Alistair his way in his entire life, and she thought she’d make a point of it.

“We’ll stop by Weisshaupt first.  But then it’s right back down that road.”


End file.
